


Indelible Traces of Life

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-10-31 17:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: Tame, Tame, Tame as the wild onesWho shout, out, out from the rooftops and small towns,We swoon and we sway,We make our way home,Oh, this love it won't leave me alone.A sketchy, rusty plane view of Phryne and Jack's journey home.A birthday for the wonderful @omgimsarahtoo.





	Indelible Traces of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarahtoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahtoo/gifts).



> It's @omgimsarahtoo's birthday, and since she asked for more [Graffiti](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10826970) I decided to gift her something that is only very vaguely like it? I don't know. Thankfully she loves me anyway. And she deserves all the fic.
> 
> Title and inspiration comes from the Whitehorse song [Tame As The Wild Ones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQUBVgrpk7I)

He didn’t think. Not as he drove to the airfield, not as he drove away with her invitation echoing in his ears, not as he spoke with the commissioner, arranged for his house—the last refuge against her presence in his life—to be cared for in his absence, not as he purchased a steamer ticket, packed his bag, propelled himself on board the ship and turned his eyes towards the horizon. It niggled and twisted and burrowed into his subconscious that this was madness, that there was no way she had _meant_ it, that even if she had he was still leaving his home on the promise of nothing more than a hurriedly exchanged kiss while he father looked on; he refused to entertain it though, refused to think beyond the next port, beyond a hotel in London he had booked, beyond a single telegram and an address handed to him before she had flown away.

He arrived on a November afternoon with gloriously clear skies, checked into his hotel—a basic room in a good hotel—and bathed, shaved, and pomaded himself into the Jack Robinson he knew himself to be. He was just finishing the task when there was a knock on the door; wondering if the porter had found his second trunk, he swung open the door.

She stood on the other side, in a scarlet coat and cloche that matched her lipstick.

If he had thought, if he had taken the length of his journey to think and plan and work through the possibilities, he would have known what to do. Instead he stood, one hand still on the doorknob, and said nothing.

“Am I welcome?” she asked, teasing him with the confidence of someone who knew she would be.

He stepped aside to let her in; as she entered she pushed the door closed, then came to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Hello Jack,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Mac?” he asked, his voice hoarse; he hadn’t mentioned where he was staying or the day of his arrival

“I _am_ a private detective,” she replied. “And I thought that since you had come all this way, it was only fair that I come the rest.”

He was thankful that years on the job meant he had changed quickly; he could not imagine meeting her before he had righted himself, an exhausted traveller or—worse—half-dressed. Not that he did not expect her to undress him immediately—he could already see that beautiful mind of hers evaluating the buttons on his waistcoat—but it was important somehow that they meet on equal footing.

He had imagined—because of course he had—that when they were here he would take the lead, roam his hands and his lips across her body and prove—to himself as much as to her—that he was worthy of the position. To draw so much pleasure from her that she would remember him long after it was over. In his truly wild dreams it was enough that she never looked at another man without finding them lacking, and hated himself for such conceit.

It was irrelevant; he froze the minute her breath hit his ear, his eyes closing at the sensation. She nibbled along his jaw, fingers toying with his tie, and he thought of another night when he had stood before her and waited to fall.

“Jack?” she asked, when the tie was half undone and she ran it through her fingers; just for a moment the sultry seductress was gone, but then Jack nodded his acknowledgement and she was back. “I’ve wanted to seduce you for so very long,” she purred. “It’s so kind of you to let me.”

He swallowed hard, clenched his fists, took a deep breath, and let her have the lead in this particular waltz. She was slow and close, her mouth against his chest, her nails scratching across his back, her still-clothed body pressed against him, rough wool and silk stockings, and finally the warmth of her as she undulated on top of him. He bit his lip when he came, stifling the groan of pleasure that threatened to escape.

———

Phryne didn't even notice at first that he'd never said the words, because he'd told her a thousand ways before he’d ever left Australia. She supposed it should scare her, this love she had never wanted or chosen for herself, but it had come so gently, with no expectations of reciprocation or promises, that it was, in truth, welcome. She was a woman who loved deeply, and she had never hidden that; it had taken time to adjust her self-perceptions to reconcile it with a romantic relationship, but she had never denied her love for people. And so she told him; quietly, at first, and never too often, but sincerely. Whispered it on nights when they made love in the dark, groaned it in moments her orgasm overtook her, traced it across his skin as he escorted her to the theatre and to parties.

His love was a certainty, found in the corners of his lips, in his adoring eyes, in the teasing games they played, in the way he made love to her with such focus that she would forget that there was anywhere else in the world but that room. But never the words, rumbled in that deep, delicious voice of his; not as they concluded their business in England or flew into Paris or along the French Riviera and back up to Vienna to visit a friend. They were in a little town in Italy—the plane had been a little unsteady, and while it was easily fixed they had decided not to push on that day—when she asked what Melbourne would bring.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head.

“We have time,” she replied, running a hand down his side and smiling as he trembled at her touch; it was more an idle thought than a pressing issue.

———

He had heard her confession of love, though he had not returned it; not out of any doubt of her—the idea was unfathomable to him—but the result of his natural reticence asserting itself. It seemed easier, somehow, to say the words when there was nothing between them—skin against skin, her fingers tangled in his hair, his hands on her hips, breath mingling—but it was not his nature.

There were other times he wanted to tell her: when she tilted her head just so over a cup of coffee, when she dragged him to a particularly dull ball and spent half the night dancing with minor royalty and eclipsed every woman in the room not because she was stunning—though she was—but because she was Phryne, when she stumbled across a crime and and saved an innocent young woman from the hangman. “You’re extraordinary,” he said instead. “Magnificent. Clever. Maddening.”

“All of it at once?” she teased.

He let his fingers trace her spine through the silk of her blouse. ”And more.”

“I like the sound of more,” she said, climbing into his lap; she unbuttoned her blouse, and the silk whispered as he slid it off her shoulders. She leaned in, took the edge of his ear in her teeth. “Tell me everything I am,” she demanded softly, her fingers brushing against him as she undressed them both.

He did.

———

When they arrived in Istanbul, they found a little hotel and spent the day wandering through the city. When they returned to their room, feet sore and arms laden with purchases, Phryne watched him undress—suit jacket off, cufflinks removed and safely tucked away, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie left hanging over the back of a chair. Delicious.

She moved forward, felt his arms wrap around her waist, and pressed a kiss to his lips; she felt as much as heard the hum through his body, so much roiling beneath his calm exterior.

“The last time I was here, it was still called Constantinople,” Phryne said, some time later, when the evening air cooled the sweat on their skin.

Many people still used the name, of course, but the world was shifting and the universe ever-expanding. And so were they.

———

Calcutta was bright—the sun, the colours, the language. He shielded his eyes against the glare, watched her move with total ease through the environment, the brightest thing in a world of bright things. He wondered if others saw her that way, the foreigner with a knack for language and enough vivacity to compensate for her shortcomings. Sometimes he thought not, that it took time to understand the complexities of her; other times he was certain they did, watching her with some mixture of admiration and awe. But mostly he just watched her, and fell in love even more.

That night, she soaked in the bath. Jack watched her from the bed, the alabaster of her skin glowing in the moonlight. _I love you,_ he meant to say, _I love you wildly and selfishly and I find I cannot be remorseful about it_ , but she had slipped beneath the water to cleanse herself of the day’s grime, and he forgot what he was going to say.

Calcutta was bright, but she was brighter.

———

She could feel Australia in her soul, just beyond the horizon and calling her home. She stood on a beach in Java, the sand between her toes and the sun setting over the water, and waited for the ache to pass. After some time he joined her, his hand lacing through hers and holding on.

“What will we find there?” he asked.

“Murders, probably,” she said quietly, uncertain what else she could say. She was not a woman who shied away from a challenge out of fear, but the ache of home had settled in her breast and she could not let it go. Home was a place, but also a person; whether it could be both at the same time, whether her heart could hold all of those contradictory things… time would tell.

He tugged her toward him, kissed her sweetly. When they left the beach it was nearly sunrise, sand in her hair and the taste of him on her lips.

———

There was an argument, though neither of them could remember why or where in the aftermath. Words were hurled in both directions, finding their targets far too easily for it to be a first disagreement. But neither of them was new to this sort of thing, brandishing thoughts in lieu of weapons they both knew how to use, and they knew each other too well to ignore the scars.

She accused him of being too reserved; he accused her of being too open. She claimed he held himself back, he replied that not everyone could be so liberal with their affections. She threw her hat on the bed, he shoved his few belongings into his bag with force. She shouted, arms gesticulating frantically. He left, grabbing his own hat off the hook and storming from the hotel room, unable to bear it a moment longer.

He walked for hours, heedless of the roads he trod, and when he returned she was already in bed, the room dark but a space free for him; he could not suppress the relief. It would never be easy, this life. They were not easy, both too proud and too independent; in some ways, it was why he wanted it. As a young man he had sought out challenges, and life had smoothed his edges but never taken away that drive. She was more home than a doting wife could ever be, more aggravating and frustrating and challenging than he was supposed to crave.

“I love you,” he said into the darkness as he climbed between the sheets; the words hung in the air, strange and unfamiliar, but the world kept spinning. In her sleep, she snuffled softly and moved closer.

———

They reach Melbourne on a Thursday afternoon; she flies them over the city, and even from the air she can see all the places that make it home. Then to an airfield where they, or the versions of themselves they had been six months before, had stood, not knowing what lay before them. The them they are now has no stronger foresight, can no more predict the future than fly without machines. She suspects that the answer is multifaceted, that for every good there will be bad and every bad there will be good. She suspects there will be moments she wants to flee, moments where she wants to stay. If she thinks about it too much, she suspects she’ll find all the reasons this will never work.

His hand finds hers, steady and sure, and his still face tells her all she needs to know.

She doesn’t think.


End file.
